


Visitations

by Isis



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Gen, Ghosts, Gods, Post-Canon, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-31
Updated: 2014-10-31
Packaged: 2018-02-22 09:05:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2502218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isis/pseuds/Isis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While imprisoned in the Great Sept, Margaery has a series of visitors.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Visitations

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ghostie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghostie/gifts).



> Happy Halloween, Ghostie! 
> 
> Many thanks to my beta-readers Ambyr and Hamsterwoman.

They came for her while she was in the Maidenvault, and that was an irony she only appreciated later, when Septa Moelle examined her body, cold fingers pressing and probing. Margaery knew what the old woman was looking for, and she could guess at whose request she was looking. They had been playing Up-the-Mountain when the door flew open; Megga had shrieked, and Alysanne, whose turn it was, had dropped the dice onto the floor. They had rolled under the table and under her own chair, and Margaery stepped on one when she stood abruptly and turned toward the door.

"You have frightened my cousins," she chided the septas who stood waiting there. She smiled as though encouraging them to admit to a prank, to say that coming for them was only a foolish jest. She placed a hand on Alla's shoulder. The girl was trembling like a blade of grass in the wind. 

"Your Grace," said Septa Moelle, at the forefront of the group outside the door. The words were respectful, but the tone was not. "There has been a charge laid against you and your women, and you must answer to the Faith." She stepped in, and the other septas flowed around her. Megga was surrounded, as was Elinor; one particularly fat septa walked right up to her and grasped Alla's other shoulder in her meaty hand. 

Grandmother had warned her that something like this might happen. She kept her spine straight. "Of course I shall come with you, if that is necessary. But leave my cousins be, I pray."

"They have been accused, and they will be judged."

"By the Faith, surely, in a proper trial."

"That will come," said the septa shortly, and she signaled to the others.

They were outnumbered and outweighed. The septas were backed up by a silent, implacable rank of knights, who stood arrayed around the door, should any of the girls be so foolish as to attempt flight. Some of them were, though Margaery wrapped herself in her dignity, holding tight to it even as her gown was stripped from her goose-pimpled skin. When the guard walked her to the Great Sept she imagined the rough brown shift she had been dressed in was fine brocade with a lace trim; she held her head high and did not cry until the door of the tiny tower cell had been locked behind her, leaving her alone.

* * *

When Septa Moelle examined her, she suspected it was at Cersei's bidding, and fumed silently. She had been fit to marry that odious creature Joffrey, but not his sweet brother, apparently. When Cersei herself came to see her, all smiles and tender words and apologies, Margaery knew it had been she who was behind it. 

They fenced politely. Margaery begged her release; Cersei shook her head mournfully. A trial by battle, she suggested, and Margaery instantly knew it for the ploy it was. It must be one of the Kingsguard to defend her, and with Loras injured, none of them were fit to join battle against...against _Tyrion_ , let alone against Ser Osney Kettleblack. 

"I am only here to help you," said Cersei solicitously. Like tea flavored with sweetsleep, honeyed words hiding a malicious intent. When she was gone, Margaery sunk onto her pallet. She wanted to weep. 

Instead, she prayed.

* * *

The cell in the high tower of the Great Sept was cold and bare, and Margaery shivered in the thin novice's robe she'd been given. It was a long time before she fell asleep, and it seemed only a short time before she woke again.

No light came through the narrow window high in the stone wall. It was still dark. She shifted on the hard pallet, and sighed. No doubt it was a septa, coming yet again to demand the confession that Margaery had still not given. Her eyes flicked toward the door – and she froze.

The door was yet closed. But a figure stood in the center of the room. Not a septa. 

Margaery cringed back against the wall. If it was not to be a trial by battle, Cersei's puppet Ser Osney would not be able to win. She would not trust to a trial by the Faith, oh, no. Had she sent an assassin, then? Margaery knew she ought to face her death calmly, like a queen. But she could not keep from shaking as she lifted her head again to the figure.

"Hush, child," said a soft voice. 

The moon must have risen, thought Margaery wildly, or perhaps there was a lantern she hadn't seen – no, there it was, in the woman's hand. For suddenly her slender and graceful figure stood clear in the light. She was an old woman, her face lined and white hair braided and swept around her head like a coronet. A jeweled headdress stood above the white locks, and her gown was elegant, though strangely styled, with wide sleeves and an oddly high collar that made her neck and head look like a rose standing in a vase.

"Lady," whispered Margaery. She did not take her eyes from the old woman even as she dipped her head. An uneasy shiver slid down her spine. 

"No, child, you may call me Grandmother Alicent. I am your mother's many-times-great-grandmother, and so yours as well."

"You do not look as old as Grandmother," said Margaery, without thinking.

The woman laughed, a light, low noise that made the room seem to grow warmer. "I am far older than she is, my dear. And I have grown wise with my years; those spent in court, and those spent here in the Great Sept after my death."

"After..." She could only stare.

"Many years, child. You have prayed to the Seven; a wise thing to do, for it is they who will judge your guilt or innocence."

The old woman's eyes bored through her, as though seeing into her heart. Margaery flushed. There were things she'd as soon keep secret, if she could. But if the Seven knew her actions, they knew her reasons. 

"The...the queen regent. She would have me name a champion from the geldings of the Kingsguard." She could not keep the scorn from her voice.

"Then it would not be wise to do so, would it."

"No," agreed Margaery. 

The old woman nodded and smiled. "I will see you again, Granddaughter." She turned to the door, and the moonlight faded around her.

Grandmother Alicent, though Margaery wildly. Her mother's mother had been named Rhea, and _her_ mother had been named Melara, but of course she didn't know those family trees that well; the only ones she'd had to memorize had been those of her father and mother, the Tyrells and the Hightowers....

_Many years, child._

The realization came to her suddenly. There had been an Alicent among the Hightowers. She had been reckoned very kind and wise; she had been daughter to the King's Hand, and queen to King Viserys.... 

...two hundred years ago.

She let out a long breath. "Grandmother Alicent?"

The figure at the door strode forward, and it was not the elegant old woman but the stick-straight and disapproving form of Septa Unella.

"Who is this Alicent?" she demanded. "Why are you not in your bed? Are you prepared to confess your fornications?"

"I have nothing to confess," said Margaery.

* * *

The next night, after Septa Aglantine left her cell, Margaery prayed. She had prayed with the septa, of course, but she had been only dutifully mouthing the words; now, she put her heart and fervor into it. Grandmother Alicent had said they would see each other again. Perhaps she would return tonight. 

But when for the hundredth time she looked up from her clasped hands, and finally saw a figure standing before the wood and iron door, it was not the old woman who stood there. She should have been frightened, for it was a man she saw, but somehow she felt calm.

"You remind me of my daughter," he said to her, in the accent of the North. 

She swallowed. "Then...then you are the Father. And you will see that I have justice?"

"Aye. Justice." He laughed harshly. "The sellsword whose lies put you here has recanted, and named the one who bought those lies with her body. Now she is locked in her own cell, and justice will be done."

Cersei, imprisoned here as well? A small fierce flame of joy burned in Margaery's heart. "Then why have I not been freed?" she demanded.

"When matters have been set in motion, they move as they will. I was promised justice on these steps, but that is not what your gods gave me."

"My gods? But are you not one of them? You are the Father, you said –"

"It was you named me so. I said only that I will see justice done for you," he said, interrupting her. "As I would for my own daughter. " The hard lines of his face softened a little. "You were kind to her. Your gods know that you have a good heart."

Sansa Stark, thought Margaery suddenly. Her father had been beheaded on the very steps of the Great Sept, she knew. Tears came to her eyes, and she blinked them away, rubbing at her face with the back of her hand; when she looked up again, he was gone.

But he had brought good news, and she smiled to herself as she drifted off to sleep again, imagining Cersei in a penitent's robe, in a cell like hers.

* * *

"You should not rejoice in the Dowager Queen's downfall."

Margaery jerked awake, her eyes opening wide. A slim, fair woman with her pale hair in a simple twist stood before her.

"Know that you are more queen than she is, and be content. The people will call you the Good Queen, as they called me. They love you for your kindnesses, and fear her for her caprice."

Good Queen Alysanne; Queen Alysanne Targaryen, who had had nine children and founded hundreds of charities and given half her fortune to the Night's Watch. "I remember you from my history lessons," Margaery said. "Why have you come to me?"

"You are a queen, as was I. A queen must think of the good of her kingdom, not the destruction of her enemies. Leave vengeance to the Seven."

" _She_ deserves this cell. I do not."

"She is only trying to hold on to what she sees as her right," said the woman mildly. "To preserve it for her children, whom she loves above all, as any mother should."

"Even Joffrey?" demanded Margaery. 

"Even Joffrey. And he is beyond your hate or love now, my dear, so let him go, and his mother as well."

"Her lies put me here!"

"And she will be judged for that. But the Mother will judge you by your mercy. Look into your heart, Margaery. Can you find mercy there?"

* * *

"Your Grace," said the knight who had appeared in her cell. She could not see his face; he was in full armor, carrying a sword. It would have frightened her, had he been her first apparition; but on this fourth night, she had, she thought wryly, become almost accustomed to them. 

"If the Kingsguard will not defend you, perhaps you need a Queensguard."

"A Queensguard?" she asked, bemused.

He bowed deeply. "Ser Lorent Marbrand, at your service. When my queen Rhaenyra was opposed by her half-brother, I stood in her defense. I lost my life when King's Landing fell into chaos and riot. This is not the first time a family has warred amongst itself for possession of the Iron Throne."

She wondered which family Ser Marbrand meant: the brothers Baratheon, two of whom were now dead, or the battle between Cersei and herself. 

"We pray to the Warrior for courage and victory in battle," said the knight. "But there are many kinds of battle, and not all are fought with swords." 

That was her answer, then. "I pray the Warrior gives me victory."

"I will stand in your defense, as I did for my queen Rhaenyra," he assured her, and vanished.

* * *

A young girl stood before her, her golden hair cascading over the shoulders of her white-and-gold gown. "If you are pure, you cannot be defeated." 

Margaery looked at the floor. _And if I am not pure?_ "The septas...examined me. My body."

"Oh, Margaery," said the girl sadly. "It is not the purity of your body that is important. If my brother had known that, he would never have locked us in the Maidenvault."

The three sisters of Baelor the Blessed, locked in the Maidenvault. Margaery had been told the story when she'd first come to King's Landing, though of course she must have heard it in her history lessons long ago. She tried to remember the girls' names. Daena, who they called the Defiant. And the child Elaena, who cut her hair to spite her brother. The middle sister had been named..."Rhaena," she said suddenly.

The girl nodded. "I watch over all maidens who are brought to the Great Sept. Whether or not they be maidens in body." The edge of her mouth quirked in the tiniest smile.

"What I have done, the Seven will judge me for," said Margaery.

"They will judge you, yes. But they will consider your heart, not your flesh."

"Can you see into my heart?"

"That is for you to do," said the girl. "Look into your heart, Margaery. And tell the Seven what you see there."

* * *

It was deep in the night. Septa Unella had woken her four times, and each time had demanded her confession. Each time Margaery had shaken her head and pressed her lips together against the screams she longed to loose against her tormenter. When a light woke her for the fifth time, she groaned.

"Do not judge us so harshly," said a man's voice. 

She blinked against the light. The man wore septon's robes, but he was not familiar to her. 

"Why should I judge you? It is you who will judge me," she murmured muzzily. She was still not quite awake. 

"The godsworn are taught every aspect of the Faith. The texts and the rituals, the meanings of every symbol. They can hold up a crystal and see the truth it casts. But though they honor the Smith, they cannot wield a hammer. They venerate the Mother, but they have no sons or daughters."

"But you are a septon."

"Once I was High Septon," he said. "But King Baelor should never have named me as such. I could build a wondrous septry, but I could not lead a prayer in it. The godsworn know the sept; they do not know the throne."

She looked at his hand for the hammer of the Smith, but it was a carver's chisel he held there. He saw her looking, and nodded.

"I know the stone," he said. "And I know the throne. I know what you face, child, and I will be with you."

* * *

Crone, Father, Mother, Warrior, Maiden, Smith. Six of the Seven had visited her; or rather, six ghosts had visited her, the spirits of men and women who had died here, and who had been chosen by the gods as their voices to her. But there was one more god to be heard from, and that was the visit she feared the most.

She was still awake when the septa came to take the confession she would not give. She heard the storm move in from the sea, the rain battering against the stone walls of the Great Sept. The stars and the sliver of moon winked out, and her bleak room grew even darker, lit only by lightning flashes.

And then she heard a voice. It was soft and strangely accented, and she could not tell if it was male or female.

"A girl can be brave," it said. "A girl must be strong."

Strong and brave, she thought; she could do it. She sat up in bed and peered into the gloom at the robed figure that stood by the door. It seemed to her that its face flickered and changed as she watched. It was an old woman; no, it was a robust man; no, it was a soft-faced idiot, a line of drool at a corner of its mouth.

"I am brave and strong," she said, though she felt she was neither. But her voice shook only a little.

No answer came. "I am brave and strong," she repeated, and this time the truth of the words was a tiny kernel she could cling to, a rock that would not move despite the fierce wind.

Still no answer. A bright flash of lightning seared her vision, and she closed her eyes. 

The crash of thunder sounded, then the bang of her cell door being flung open. "Will you confess your fornications?" said Septa Unella.

"I am brave and strong," said Margaery calmly. "And I have nothing to confess."

* * *

After Osney Kettleblack had been broken and the others had backed away from their accusations, Margaery thought she and her cousins would be freed. Instead they were released to the household of her father's bannerman Randyll Tarly; and that was only to be temporary, for they must still stand trial. "I am sorry for it," Randyll said to her. "If your father or I had been named as Regent, we would have had the charges dismissed. But Rowan insists we go through with it."

She nodded. When Lord Regent Ser Kevan Lannister had been assassinated, her father had seemed to her the logical choice to take over the Regency. But those sworn to the Lannisters had been convinced that Ser Kevan's death and that of Grand Maester Pycelle had been engineered by the Tyrells, and Lord Mathis Rowan, a well-liked man who had a reputation for fairness, had been chosen as a compromise. 

"I must, yes," she said. "I understand that. But Megga and Elinor? Alla? She's only a child!" Anger surged in her again as she remembered how Alla had run to her, sobbing, when they were finally allowed to leave the Great Sept. She'd pressed her face into Margaery's skirts and wailed, her small shoulders heaving. 

Randyll shrugged. "It's you they want. Prove your innocence, and the others will be known to be innocent as well." 

She was grateful that he did not press her, or ask her if the charges were false. He had come to King's Landing for her, after all, driven by his fierce loyalty to House Tyrell. And by his own self-interest; he'd been rewarded with a position on King Tommen's small council, by way of apology from the Lannisters. But his self-interest demanded that she be exonerated, for if she were no longer queen, there would be no need of an alliance between the Lannisters and the Tyrells. 

If she were executed as a traitor, there would likely be war. 

So much rested on her trial. _I am brave and strong_ , she reminded herself, and smiled at Randyll. "Then prove it I shall."

* * *

The people of King's Landing lined the streets as Margaery and her retinue made their way to the Great Sept of Baelor. Most of them were cheering, calling her name, and that warmed her. She had been afraid, a little, that it might be like Cersei's walk of atonement, with catcalls and handfuls of filth thrown at her as she passed. But she had not confessed, as Cersei had done, to any of the accusations against her. And the people's affection for her had been bought with bread, not with fear, and so they had no reason to turn against her.

They were waiting for her in the great chamber of the sept. The High Septon and Lord Regent Mathis Rowan occupied a pair of straight-backed wooden chairs on one side of the room. Behind them stood two knights of the Warrior's Sons, who between them held a wretched, weeping figure in rags, a skinny boy whose hair was brown at the roots and blue at the dirty tips; with a stifled gasp, Margaery recognized him as the laughing, smiling bard whose songs had brightened the Red Keep. 

On the other side of the chamber stood Mace Tyrell, in his role as father rather than as Hand. Randyll Tarly and Septa Nymerica led her white-faced cousins to join them, leaving her alone in the center of the room, facing the seven who would decide her fate. Four old men and three old women sat at the long table, the septons and septas charged with representing the views of the gods. They did not smile at her, but neither did they look at her with pinch-lipped disapproval, the way the High Septon looked at her, as though every breath she took somehow confirmed her failings in the gods' eyes. They looked at her searchingly, thoughtfully, consideringly. She raised her chin to meet their combined gaze.

And as she studied their faces, they...changed. At the far end of the table, the fat septon's broad cheeks seemed to narrow as his face lengthened; a beard covered his long chin, and he was, for a moment, Sansa's father as he had appeared to her in her cell. The young septa in the middle suddenly had golden hair and soft, violet eyes, and she nodded understandingly toward Margaery. At the far end, Septa Moelle's sharp features were overlaid with those of Alicent Hightower. Abruptly Margaery recalled her words. _I will see you again, Granddaughter._

"Have you nothing to say in your defense, Lady Margaery? Do you confess to these charges against you?"

Startled, she looked up at the High Septon, then at her father and her frightened cousins. Evidently this was not the first question the High Septon had asked her. "I...I..."

She looked back at the seven godsworn. The ghostly faces were beginning to fade, and she saw only men and women in the robes of their orders. 

Except for one; except for the hooded Stranger. _A girl can be brave_ , she heard in her head. _A girl must be strong_. Then that changing face, too, faded.

She would be brave and strong. "The Seven know I have nothing to confess," she said boldly. And she knew it would be so.

**Author's Note:**

> For those of you who are curious about the ghosts, here they are:
> 
> Crone - [Alicent Hightower](http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Alicent_Hightower)  
> Father - [Eddard Stark](http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Eddard_Stark)  
> Mother - [Alysanne Targaryen](http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Alysanne_Targaryen)  
> Warrior - [Lorent Marbrand](http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Lorent_Marbrand)  
> Maiden - [Rhaena Targaryen](http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Rhaena_Targaryen_%28daughter_of_Aegon_III%29)  
> Smith - [the High Septon who was a stonemason](http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/High_Septon_%28stonemason%29)  
> Stranger - [a Faceless Man](http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Faceless_Men)


End file.
